


something holy

by carverism



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: F/M, Incest, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carverism/pseuds/carverism
Summary: Lucrezia noticed him then, turning her head to fix him with a small smile pressing wickedly into her full, white cheek. “Dear brother,” she said, tilting her head, reaching out a hand. “Why do you lurk in the doorway? Why do you not come to me?”Not so innocent, underneath it all, Cesare thought, and went to her as bade, catching her fingers in his. So delicate they were in his grip. She’d always been small in his arms: something to be protected and cherished.“Sister,” he greeted, lifting her hand to his lips and letting himself linger with his mouth against her skin, inhaling that familiar scent.Post-series.





	something holy

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled, "The One Where Rodrigo And Vannozza Find Out."

 

I loved him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will. 

— Sylvia Plath

 

//

 

Bathed in the sunlight streaming through the open window, Lucrezia all-but glittered. 

For a moment, Cesare found himself struck by the impossible beauty of his sister. He had been gazing at that golden face for near a lifetime, and yet still, she managed to startle him now and again: so innocent, so pure, so physically untouched by the darkness that seemed to plague their Borgia blood.

Lucrezia noticed him then, turning her head to fix him with a small smile pressing wickedly into her full, white cheek. “Dear brother,” she said, tilting her head, reaching out a hand. “Why do you lurk in the doorway? Why do you not come to me?”

Not so innocent, underneath it all, Cesare thought, and went to her as bade, catching her fingers in his. So delicate they were in his grip. She’d always been small in his arms: something to be protected and cherished.

“Sister,” he greeted, lifting her hand to his lips and letting himself linger with his mouth against her skin, inhaling that familiar scent.

Several long weeks had passed since Cesare had last set eyes on Lucrezia. The death of Alfonso d’Aragona had spelt a blow to the already-tenuous alliance forged between Rome and Naples, and with the rest of Italy shifting in nervous anticipation in the wake of the defeat of Caterina Sforza and the Borgia conquest of Forlì, Cesare had been forced to depart the palace with the thrill of battle calling his name. Wary of prying eyes, he had exchanged few letters with Lucrezia, filled with nothing more than pleasantries, glaring with the omission of any real conversation.

Since that fateful night, they had been afforded precious little opportunity to truly speak with each other. In fact, Cesare had pondered fitfully about the reception he might receive from his sister upon his return to Rome; she had, after all, loved her husband, even if that love manifested more, in his mind, as a girl with a much cherished pet than that of a devoted wife. 

But now, standing before him, there was no evidence of scorn in her face. She seemed as she always had to him. Perhaps not as light, perhaps older, but wasn’t that the same for all of them? No one ever truly escaped the probing hands of time. Lucrezia’s smile still shone the same; when she pulled her hand away and leaned in close to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, lingering on the knife’s edge of sisterly devotion and something altogether more insidious, Cesare detected nothing of the wroth he had feared, and even perhaps expected.

“I have missed you dearly, brother,” Lucrezia said, settling back to look him warmly in the face.

“And I, you, sweet sister,” Cesare replied. He allowed himself to take a closer look at her, thumbing carefully at her chin, then up to the thin, pink shell of her ear. With a quick glance over his shoulder to ascertain that they were alone, with no silent, skulking maid servants hiding in the corners, he let his hands slip down the pale line of her throat, and around to catch her at her waist. Leaning in, he watched her eyelids flutter close, full lips parting in expectation. But before he could press his mouth to hers, she laughed suddenly, and spun away, leaving him clutching at air.

Cesare started, near-plaintive, “Lucrezia,” but she was already headed for the door, aiming a sly look over her shoulder.

“Have you been to see our father since you’ve returned, Cesare?” she asked, hand on the doorknob.

Caught off-guard, Cesare said, “No, not presently. I came here first.” To see you, he did not add, but judging by the devious amusement on Lucrezia’s face, he did not have to.

“Papa will be expecting you,” she said, and pulled the heavy door open. In the corridor outside, the household staff bustled to and fro, a jarring reminder that, outside of themselves and their little room, the world still turned. Cesare, who tended to get lost in Lucrezia, felt the invasion acutely. 

“Come, brother,” said Lucrezia. “I’ll escort you.”

Ah, thought Cesare, understanding suddenly. It was to be a game.

 

//

 

Even as a child, Cesare had been well-aware of the way that the people of Rome regarded him. _Marrano_ , the children used to spit after him in the streets; then, as a teenager, whispers of Spanish half-breeds, whores, and insidious vipers. In his cardinal reds, the eyes that followed him spoke more of respect than derision, but even that was not enough to cow the sons of the great Italian families, who would never accept a Borgia, no matter how nicely it dressed. Now, as he walked through the great city, Lucrezia on his arm, flanked by a guard on either side and another trailing behind, he detected something like awe in the gazes of the crowd as it parted for him like Moses through the sea. Awe, and no small amount of fear. 

Tales of his conquests had reached throughout Italy, and across the whole of Europe. They tremored at the mere thought of Duke Valentinois now, those high-and-mighty sons of Rome. Upon such fragile thrones they sat.

At his side, Lucrezia said, “Look at all of them watch you, brother. Such fame you have wrought yourself.”

“Fame is not my goal,” said Cesare, though that was not strictly true. Lucrezia, who had always known the bones of him, gave a trenchant, if not unladylike, snort.

“If there is one quality we Borgias have in abundance, it is ambition,” she said, in a tone much too acrid for Cesare’s liking. Despite the sun in the sky and the birds chirping overhead, Lucrezia seemed irritated, now, removed from the palace walls and exposed by the light of day.

“Come now, sis,” he cajoled, bumping her gently with his hip. “I’ve returned to you. I should think this would be a joyous occasion.”

It was not so long ago that Cesare could tease his sister out of any mood, no matter how black. He remembered her as a tow-headed toddler, as a flaxen-haired youth, either tugging him along by the hand or following along in his shadow. Their childhood had been idyllic, in that way childhoods were, and he’d loved her then, as he loved her now. Often, when all else crumbled in the face of Lucrezia’s effusive will, he was the only one who could entreat her to see reason.

Now, she just made a face, huffing softly. “Yes,” she said, “quite joyous indeed.”

“Sis,” Cesare said, not quite pleading. They were approaching the base of the papal steps, now. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

But Lucrezia just smiled, small and secretive and even a little bit cruel, and held out an expectant arm, waiting until Cesare finally gave in — something he only did for her, could only conceive of with her — and helped her ascend the steps.

 

//

 

Despite her prickly mood only moments earlier, Cesare felt Lucrezia align herself with him once more as they walked through the doors of the Vatican. Cardinal red was everywhere, pooling around them like blood, and projecting some cloying cross between resentment and fear. Cesare rolled his shoulders in his black military jacket, held his chin haughty and high. They hated him, these holy men; they hated his father, hated his family, hated their blood and their accents and the way that they looked. Filthy Spaniards, every one of them. Cesare wore it with pride, like armor.

In the chamber, their father sat high and mighty in his throne, listening to something Cardinal Sforza was saying. The look of stern concentration on his face melted away as he caught sight of Lucrezia and Cesare. With Sforza summarily forgotten, Rodrigo leapt to his feet and, holding his papal skirts out of the way, hurried over to take Cesare by the shoulders.

“Our beloved son!” he announced to the room at large. Over his father’s head, Cesare saw a cardinal roll his eyes heavenward. Unperturbed by the lukewarm murmuring in the room, Rodrigo continued, “Home at last, with good news for us, I hope.”

Cesare smiled. “Of course. I’d never let you down, Father." 

Even as he said it, his thoughts strayed to Juan, as they still did from time to time, unwillingly. Judging by the suddenly thin, tense line of his mouth, Rodrigo’s mind had done the same.

Cesare was not sorry, exactly, for killing Juan. After all, Juan had so richly deserved it. But that knowledge did little in the way of allowing Cesare to forget all those years that they were brothers. Juan had never been as dear to him as Lucrezia, of course; no one could ever be as dear to him as Lucrezia. Brothers had meant something, though. It had mattered.

When they had first come to Italy, they were all that they had. Cesare, Lucrezia, Juan, their parents. Even Gioffre. Their own private army, a band of six.

Those days felt so far away now. All of Italy was soon to belong to them, a gang of Spaniards. One had to laugh.

“We’ll have a party,” Rodrigo was saying, one hand still pressed to Cesare’s shoulder, the other gesturing to include the entire room of cardinals and the thinly-veiled looks of displeasure on their stately faces. “To welcome home our dear son, Cesare. What do you think, Lucrezia?” he asked, taking Lucrezia’s hand in his own and giving it a wiggle. “Should we welcome your brother home with a great, lavish feast?”

Lucrezia smiled without showing her teeth. “Of course, Your Holiness,” she said, dipping her head. Her eyes met Cesare’s, something inscrutable in her expression. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, dear Cesare?” she asked.

Cesare stared at her for a beat, two, and then smiled. “Yes, Lucrezia,” he said, and turned to take his father’s hand and press a kiss to his ring. “Father.”

When he pulled away, Rodrigo’s eyes were on him. “Wonderful,” he said quietly, and then louder: “Wonderful. Wonderful. A party, then.”

 

//

 

The gathering was scheduled for two nights hence, and Cesare spent both of those days prowling impatiently around the palace as Lucrezia found excuse after excuse to avoid him. 

“I’m very busy, Cesare,” she’d said the last time he had tried to pull her aside, looking very affronted indeed. “Our mother needs help preparing for your party. These things don’t simply come together at the snap of your fingers.” She’d wrenched her arm out of his grip, then, and disappeared in a whirlwind down the corridor.

By the time the party finally rolled around, Cesare was in a black mood indeed. A large part of him wished simply to abscond elsewhere until everyone had left again, but Vannozza would never forgive him, not to mention how Lucrezia would react. She had been ignoring him plainly for days, but Cesare wasn’t fool enough to think that she wouldn’t care if he failed to show up. So it was with ill will and little patience that he accepted his guests, his father on one side and Lucrezia bolstering the other. The cardinals were in scattered attendance, doing little to hide their discontent. Not that their pleasure mattered one jot to Cesare. He took another flagon of wine and poured half of it down his throat in one pull.

The rest of the guests were mostly giving him a wide berth, daunted by the stories of his brutalities, no doubt, which pleased Cesare just fine. He had no desire to speak to any of them, except for Lucrezia, and she hadn’t been without company since people began drifting through their door hours before. 

“You look as if you’ll glower a hole right through her,” Vannozza remarked critically, catching Cesare lurking in a corner. “Oh, let her have her fun, Cesare. She’s just dancing.”

“I’m not doing anything, Mother,” said Cesare, taking another long gulp of his wine. Vannozza made a dismissive noise in her throat and, without warning, reached out and snatched the goblet from his hand. “Mother!” Cesare complained.

With the wave of her hand, Vannozza summoned a servant and handed the half-empty cup over. “You’ve been doing nothing but drinking and glaring all night,” she said briskly. “Go out and talk to someone. Dance. Anything. This is your party.”

“Exactly,” Cesare said. “It’s my party. I should think I would have all the wine I could desire.”

Vannozza was uncowed, and it was with no small amount of consternation that Cesare found himself wading through the crowd to find Francesco Gonzaga’s young daughter, Maria, and bowed, proffering a hand. “My lady,” he said, allowing himself to smile at her wide-eyed, hunted expression.

She wasn’t ill-mannered enough to refuse, however, and so he drew her out onto the floor, bracing one hand above the line of her skirt as they twirled. Maria was a fine dancer, if not a very interesting partner, and so Cesare found his attention wandering, as ever, back to Lucrezia. Over several heads, he could see her shock of blonde hair, the vibrant blue of her nicest gown.

Having her so close, yet so very far away, left Cesare filled with something like despair. Suddenly, he couldn’t bear to watch her anymore. He ached to touch her. It had been so long, and yet the memory of her under his fingers occupied his every thought. Abruptly, he walked away from Maria, who stuttered to a stop in the middle of the dancing throng, staring after him, but he did not look back. Something in his expression had people hasting out of his way, and so he made it into an empty corridor with little trouble.

Alone finally with just his thundering heart for company, Cesare decided that the trouble was, he had not yet had enough to drink. He resolved to scour the kitchens for his own bottle of wine when Lucrezia’s voice cut through the noise of the party: “Where are you going?”

Cesare turned to find his sister standing half-shadowed at the end of the corridor. Sweat dotted her hairline from the dancing, and her cheeks were flushed with exertion. She frowned at him. “Are you leaving?” she pressed. 

“I’m surprised you even noticed,” said Cesare, not without bitterness.

Coming closer, Lucrezia scoffed. “So you decided to flee, then?” she said. “To give up? I have to say, I’m surprised you conquered anything at all with that level of dedication.”

“Is that what this is?” Cesare asked. “You want me to chase you? Is that what all this has been for?”

Lucrezia’s face was stubborn. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Lucrezia,” Cesare said. “Please.”

At that, her gaze slid down to the floor. After a long, fraught moment, she took a bolstering breath, looked up at him through her eyelashes, and asked again, “Where are you going?”

“I’m getting a flagon of wine from the kitchen and taking it up to my chambers,” Cesare said, turning on his heel. “You should go back to your party.”

As he trotted down the stone steps, however, he heard her following along at his heels. The kitchens were bustling with servants, all of whom fell into bows as Cesare and Lucrezia walked by. Cesare just ignored them, making for the cellar, taking a dusty bottle off of the shelf, and heading back the way he came with Lucrezia playing his shadow. She trailed him all the way up to his chambers, closing the heavy wooden door with a clank as Cesare fell back onto the bed, wine in hand.

Before long, Lucrezia appeared beside him, holding out an expectant hand. Cesare considered, just for a moment, refusing her, just to see what would happen. But he had never been able to deny her anything, and so inevitably he handed the bottle over and watched the line of her throat as she swallowed. As she handed the bottle back, her gaze was knowing.

They drank in silence for several long minutes, listening to the festivities unfold below. Cesare turned his head to look at her, leaning in her resplendent dress up against the window, head tipped against the glass.

“So,” Cesare finally ventured, “will you forgive me, then?”

Lucrezia’s face was impossible to interpret. “Forgive you for what?”

“I don’t know,” he said, then guessed, “For your husband?” He didn’t bother to clarify, not out of regret or any latent brotherly feeling toward Alfonso, but out of respect for Lucrezia, who had felt affection for her husband, no matter his, in Cesare’s opinion, many faults.

Lucrezia, it seemed, had no such concerns. “You mean the husband you murdered?” she said, tone sharp. 

Cesare sighed. “The very same.”

Lucrezia scoffed, turning toward the window. With her back to Cesare, she asked in a dull voice, “Of course not. How could one forgive such a grievous crime? Such an act is unforgivable.”

Cesare felt his heart, pathetic thing that it was, sink. “Lucrezia…” he began. Spinning around, she cut him off.

“I speak not of the crime of stabbing my husband, though that crime in and of itself is abhorrent. The crime, brother, of which I speak is how you have lied to me. You lie to me again and again, disguising these deceits with sweet words and professions of devotion, but how devoted can you be truly if you do not treat me as your equal? I am not a little girl any longer. I am not your little sister. I am a woman, and I have been in your bed. I have tasted your sweat on my tongue.”

“Lucrezia,” Cesare tried again, but she was not finished.

“The rest of the world may see me as just a woman, good for nothing but bedding and breeding, the ties I have to our father, the Pope. But I am no ordinary woman, am I, brother?” Lucrezia sneered. “I am a Borgia: same as you, same as our father. The same Borgia blood runs through my veins; I am not some whore for you to use and then discard, as though I meant nothing at all.”

Cesare reached out to take her hand, holding her to him even as she attempted to yank away. “Lucrezia, you know that I would never, ever — you know that I love you, desperately.”

“Enough to tell me the truth?” she challenged, uncowed even as she was forced to stare up at him. “Enough to treat me as your equal?”

Pulling Lucrezia closer, Cesare pressed his forehead fiercely against hers, forcing her to look into his eyes as he gritted out, “Enough to seat you on a throne beside me and call you mine.”

Lucrezia’s breath shuddered. “That night,” she murmured before trailing off into expectant silence.

“Yes,” said Cesare. “What of it?”

She took a moment to collect her thoughts, frowning down at their feet. “That night, you said — you told me that I was to be yours, then, as well.”

At the thought of it — wiping the blood from his sister’s pale face, the blood of her husband, who, a finger’s breadth away, lied dead from Cesare’s own hand — Cesare swallowed. He remembered all of it, the whole night, with crystal clarity: opening his mouth against her skin, tasting the salt off of her jawline, and then, further down, her clavicle, the curve of her breast. She had moaned, then, just a little; just loudly enough to be heard over the roaring thrum of his heart in his chest, and something in Cesare had snapped at the sound. With far less grace than he had ever before treated Lucrezia, he had pulled her off of the bed and onto the floor, and, using a blade, ripped the bodice of her dress free of her until she was laying bare before him, face shining with tears even as she grabbed for him, clutched at his hair, pleading for more, more. And they had laid together then for the second time, and afterward, pillowing Lucrezia’s head with the bend of his arm as she dozed, Cesare had stared up at the ceiling and marveled at just how good and holy and right it felt being with her. Belonging to her.

Since even the earliest days of childhood, Cesare had seen something of himself reflected in Lucrezia, a lighter piece of his darker whole. That Borgia quality was more subtle in her, masked by her beauty and her effortless poise and grace, but nonetheless there, bubbling just underneath. Often, people missed it, distracted by the saucer-eyed innocence on the surface, but Cesare never had.

“Yes,” he said.

Lucrezia asked, “And you meant it?”

Fervently, Cesare said, “Of course I meant it. I meant it then and I mean it now.” He dropped abruptly to his knees, kneeling before her with her hand in his. “My love, I’ve never meant anything more.” There was something suspicious lingering still in the purse of her lips, so he pressed, “I told you: none of it, any of it, means a jot to me compared to you." 

Finally, Lucrezia smiled. “But what of your kingdom, Cesare? Surely your great many conquests sit at the forefront of your mind.”

“It would be no kingdom worth having without you by my side, my love,” murmured Cesare.

Lucrezia made a soft noise, then, almost a moan. Surging to his feet, Cesare took her in his arms, lifting her from her feet and sweeping her toward the bed, laying her down and then crawling after to take her mouth hungrily with his own.

There were times that Cesare found himself struck by the depth and ferocity of his love for Lucrezia. It was all-consuming, like no other feeling he had ever known. Nobody, not even his father or his dear mother, had ever inspired such devotion from him. There were times that Cesare wished almost to devour her, body and soul, so that they could never be parted again.

Under his hands, calloused and rough as they were, Lucrezia’s skin was like the finest silk. She moved so easily under his ministrations, arched so prettily, neck exposed and bare. Hastily, he pulled the ties of her dress free, wriggling it up her body as she giggled and shifted to help. “Infernal things,” he huffed, loosening the corset until he could tug it off of her.

When he finally had her free, breasts pale and full and perfect in the candlelight, Cesare could not help but stare, just for a moment. So long it had been since he had seen her like this. Not since the death of her husband, he thought to himself before tucking that line of thinking away again. There was no room for such thoughts. Not here, in their own little pocket of the world.

Here, there was room for Cesare and Lucrezia, and Cesare and Lucrezia alone.

“Mine,” Cesare murmured, sweeping a thumb over one little pink nipple and watching her twitch.

“Yours,” she agreed throatily, and looked up at him through her lashes. “Will you take me?”

She drove him wild, his Lucrezia, to abject senselessness. _Can you tell me why we’re cursed with this feeling that feels so natural, and good_ , she’d said to him once, and at times like these, Cesare couldn’t help but agree. Being together felt so right that sometimes it seemed almost holy. What could be wrong about the way that they loved each other? Who could find fault in Cesare for treasuring Lucrezia, for cherishing her above all else?

There was no grace to the fervor with which he took her then, fretting his cock to hardness and pressing inside her warmth as her mouth fell open in a soundless gasp.

“Lucrezia,” he said, hips twitching, grinding himself into her.

“Yes,” she answered, “yes,” and with that, Cesare began to rut, hips slapping against her pale, perfect ass. He curled himself over her, pressing his forehead fitfully into her shoulder as she clawed at his shoulders, drawing stinging lines across his skin.

“Harder,” he murmured against her skin, scraping his teeth over that velvety smoothness, wanting her to leave a mark. He wanted to be possessed by her, inside and out. He wanted everyone to see the traces she would leave on him, the ties that bound them. He wanted to scream it from the rooftops: _I am, she is, we are._

God had made them for each other; that much was clear to Cesare. The fact felt as suddenly incontrovertible as Cesare’s very love for Lucrezia.

Underneath him, Lucrezia was twisting with pleasure, her whole body arching into his. It had been so long, far too long, and too quickly, Cesare felt himself approaching rapture. He thrust once, twice more, and then, with a muffled shout, he gave over to it. 

When he finally came back to himself, he was lying still half-on-top of Lucrezia, softening cock slipping out of her and lying sticky in between her thighs. Lucrezia was taking matters into her own hands, fingers working quickly at that little button that sat on top of her sex. Gently, Cesare reached out to join her, thumbing at her as she cried out. It didn’t take long before she was gasping and shoving his hand away, cheeks flushed and ruddy with pleasure. She was so beautiful, so perfect that Cesare couldn’t help but pull her back in for a kiss, licking into her open mouth. 

“I missed you so very much,” he said, stroking her sweaty hair away from her face. She smiled at him, sweet.

“And I you, dear brother,” she said. Something in him flushed hot and ashamed and thrilled all the same.

Brother, sister. What did it matter?

He pulled her in again.

 

//

 

In the following days, they were as foolhardy as newlyweds. Cesare couldn’t stop himself from pulling Lucrezia into empty corridors and leaving her flushed and breathless with kisses. Sometimes more, if they had the time and she didn’t stop him.

“Is it a blessing,” Lucrezia mused one early morning, drawing her fingertips slowly up the line of his back, “or a curse?”

In the dim light gently spilling through the window, Cesare could see her, illuminated by pale hues of purples and reds. With the blankets pooled around her lithe waist, she was Venus on the half shell. Divinity was written in her every curve. Cesare craned forward to press a soft, open-mouthed kiss at the base of her throat, smiling against her skin as a small noise escaped her mouth.

“You mean us?” he asked, setting his teeth against the protrusion of Lucrezia’s collarbone and biting down until she gasped.

“Yes,” she said, hand trailing back up his spine and coming to cup at his jaw. “Do you think it’s a punishment? The way we love each other?”

Cesare said, “Do you feel as though you are being punished?”

Lucrezia’s mouth twisted. “Sometimes. When — with Sforza,” she said, the mention of her first husband drawing her face into a sudden scowl. “Every day with him felt like a punishment.” 

“A punishment for what?” asked Cesare, pressing a kiss to the side of her hand.

At that, Lucrezia huffed a little laugh, though there was little amusement in it. “For being Lucrezia Borgia?” she suggested. “I don’t know.”

“With me, it feels like a punishment?” Cesare asked. He had to know. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she said yes; he couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her, not now, after everything.

But Lucrezia smiled. “You feel like the only beautiful part of my whole life,” she said, eyes searching his face. “When I wake up, yours is the only face I wish to see. I feel as if I may die when we are apart. Sometimes...sometimes, I wish.” She trailed off, the corners of her going wobbly with sudden emotion. 

“What?” Cesare whispered. “Whatever you wish. Anything. Just tell me.”

“I wish I could be your wife,” Lucrezia said. A tear rolled down her face.

Gently, Cesare reached up to thumb away the moisture on her cheek. “Sweet sister,” he said. “You can be. You can be my wife.” A tentative smile sprouted back on her face, and Cesare had to kiss it, landing pecks on her mouth and her chin and the line of her jaw.

“When I leave here, I will take my armies and the Papal armies both, and I will take everything. All of Italy will be mine. And I will be king,” he whispered against her throat as she finally laughed, breathless with delight. “I will rule over Italy, with Rome returned to its former glory, and you, dear sister — you will sit by my side, and you will be my queen.” At that, he moved to take her mouth again, but to his displeasure, she angled her face away, giggling, half-dismayed: 

“Cesare! The people would revolt!” 

“But we will be king and queen, my love,” Cesare argued, pushing up onto his elbows to look her in the eyes. “What concern have we for what the people say? Who would dare to say a thing to us? We are God’s chosen.” 

Lucrezia’s lips twitched into a smile, something disbelieving still lingering at the corners of her mouth. “Our father, His Holiness, might have an opinion of sorts,” she said, her tone dubious.

Cesare rolled his eyes heavenward. “Our father, His Holiness, has many opinions. Very few of them make much of a difference at all to me.”

“Is that so?” Lucrezia teased, leaning up to press her teeth into the meat of Cesare’s chin, biting down until Cesare took in a breath, and then pressed the flat of her tongue against his stinging skin in apology. She resettled against the pillow, a frown furrowing her brow. “And what of God, Cesare?” 

“What _of_ God?” he countered.

“Do you fear perdition?” Lucrezia asked.

“Sometimes,” said Cesare honestly. He didn’t think overly much about the Holy Mother Church or her threats of eternal damnation, which Lucrezia of course knew, but in his deepest heart, there was the ever-present worry that God was sitting up there somewhere, judging them for their sins. As far as sins went, Cesare knew that his were mighty. Like with most aspects of his life, he had taken sinning to newer, greater heights than anyone before him.

He cupped Lucrezia’s pale cheek in his palm, and smiled when she leaned into his touch. “When I am with you,” he whispered, “I fear nothing at all.”

Lucrezia’s eyebrow quirked. “Nothing?” she repeated. He felt her trail her fingers from his chest ever so slowly down to the cut of his waist, lingering just above where his cock was beginning to stir. Lucrezia tilted her head, gave a little moue. Said, “Not even me?”

Cesare let his eyes flutter shut, resting his weight more fully on his elbow as Lucrezia’s small fingers finally, blessedly began to caress him.

“You?” said Cesare, and drew her in for a kiss. “Not at all.”

 

//

 

It seemed foolish, somehow, that after all they had done together — all of the lies and the beds and the blood they had shared — something as simple as a kiss could have been that which undid them. 

The embrace was not meant to be shared by brother and sister together, and yet they had, Cesare leaning down to press his mouth to Lucrezia’s, feeling her lips part against his own. She wasn’t shy, his sister, and she gasped, too loud, as he pressed her back against the pillows. So enraptured, so wholly preoccupied was Cesare that he plainly forgot about the door, still hanging adjar, and so, when Rodrigo swept into Cesare’s chambers without so much as a courtesy knock, Cesare had one hand framing Lucrezia’s jaw as he licked boldly into her mouth and the other placed in a very ungentlemanly manner in the split of her thighs. 

It was not innocent. One would have had to have been a fool not to see that, and for all of his flaws, Pope Alexander VI was no fool.

For perhaps the first time in his life, words seemed to have escaped His Holiness entirely. Drained of blood, his face was drawn and white, eyes round and saucer-like as he looked wildly between Cesare and Lucrezia, as though if he stared long enough and hard enough, the scene before him might transform. When it didn’t — when Cesare remained Cesare, shirtless in the candlelight, and Lucrezia, still on the bed with her pale, bare knees drawn to her chest, clutching the bed coverings to her as if a shield, remained Lucrezia — Rodrigo took a single, staggering step forward, arm shaking as he outstretched a hand in accusation. “You,” he said to Cesare in a tremulous voice, almost entirely sapped of strength. “First your brother and now…this? Your sister?”

In a moment, indignation won out over the sense of sudden shame brewing in Cesare’s chest. “This isn’t the same!” he protested. But Rodrigo wasn’t listening, turning instead to Vannozza, who remained shadowed in the doorway, hands pressed to her chest as though it hurt. 

“Did you know of this?” Rodrigo thundered. Evidently, rage had overridden the shock. Rodrigo was regaining his strength, and with it, his appetite for battle.

Vannozza’s mouth dropped open. “Of course I did not know!” she said. “How could you even consider — ”

“You have been known to allow their every indulgence since they were but children,” Rodrigo interrupted, rounding on her. In the thin light from the candles, Cesare could see spittle flying from his father’s lips. “Why wouldn’t we assume that the blame for this, this abhorrence, too, lies at your feet?”

Seeing the tears welling in Vannozza’s eyes, Cesare interjected, “Father, she knew nothing of it.”

Wheeling on Cesare, Rodrigo roared, “Silence!” He crossed the room in a few long strides to take Cesare by the shoulders and force him back against the wall, with enough strength that Cesare could feel the notches of his spine and the blades of his shoulders grinding painfully against the stone. Rodrigo leaned in, close enough for Cesare to count the blood vessels in his eyes, teeth bared as he shouted: “You will be silent! We have heard enough of your perversions to last a hundred lifetimes!”

“Father!” Lucrezia cried, making herself heard for the first time since their parents had burst through the door and popped the happy bubble of feigned domesticity they had crafted for themselves. Cesare could see her just over his father’s shoulder, curls still hanging wild and loose around her shoulders, pulling a blanket around herself like a shawl. 

Cesare and Rodrigo both looked to her, Rodrigo with something like shock on his face. In the meat of his arm, Cesare felt his father’s hand tighten near to the point of pain and then abruptly release as he took a step back, visibly collecting the scraps of his dignity around himself like armor.

Face wet with tears but voice as sturdy as a rock, Lucrezia continued, “Father, no one knew the truth of Cesare and me but Cesare and I alone.”

“And what is the truth of Cesare and you?” interjected Vannozza.

Lucrezia cast an entreating look at Cesare, who said, “We are...she is — well, she is my sister.” 

“Of this fact we are abundantly aware,” Rodrigo said. His voice was as dry and acrid as the desert sands.

“Yes,” agreed Cesare helplessly. He was at a loss for words. How could one attempt to explain a situation that he did not fully understand himself? The reality was that his relationship with Lucrezia was both fantastically simple and endlessly complicated, all at once. She was his sister, and he loved her like a sister, cherished her like a sister, but he also loved her as he loved himself. He could never love anyone more. Lucrezia was to him as oxygen: another could never take her place. But that was something his father, who had never loved a lover as dearly as he loved himself, could never truly comprehend. “I love her,” Cesare said. “I love her as a wife.” Then, remembering, “I love her more than my true wife. I will always — ”

Rodrigo groaned like he’d been physically struck, and sank down into the chaise as abruptly as if his strings had been cut. Head in hands, he said, searchingly, as though to himself, “What can we do? What is there to be done?”

“You will do nothing,” said Cesare. Absently, he noticed that he loomed over his elderly father. Through the years, they had grown in opposite directions: while Cesare had become as broad and tall as Jupiter himself, Rodrigo had become smaller and grayer with each passing season. The man was frankly diminutive now, especially in the face of Cesare’s wroth.

For so long, Rodrigo’s word had been as definite and formidable as the very word of God. Even before he was Pope, he had served as the Lord of their home, someone whose commands could neither be ignored nor opposed.

Now, Cesare was realizing, what power did his father have over him truly? Cesare was no longer a boy; now, he was a man, and the only man who commanded him was himself. _Aut Caesar, aut nihil_. Cesare was his own Lord and master.

Cesare continued, “You can do nothing.” 

Voice tremulous with impotent rage, Rodrigo said, “We are your father. We are — ”

“You have no alternative,” Cesare interrupted. “I control your armies. Half of Italy is under my direct command. If you want to stop me, you must kill me.”

Rodrigo was silent. He of course knew how intrinsically and inescapably they were tied to each other. Rodrigo’s fate lay in Cesare’s hands just as assuredly as Cesare’s fate did with the Pope’s. Everything Rodrigo had worked toward, his dreams of establishing a kingship in Italy with the papal throne assuring its legitimacy — it all hinged on Cesare. Juan was dead. Gioffre was yet still a child, and whiled away in Naples with his wife regardless. And although Cesare of course knew Lucrezia to be capable, no one would accept a woman on the throne. It was all precarious enough to begin with; adding Lucrezia to the mix as a potential heir would incite nothing short of total mutiny. No, it had to be Cesare, and Rodrigo knew it.

“We are the both of us stuck,” said Cesare. “Together. Forever. All of us.”

After all, that was how they had arrived in Italy, all those years ago: reviled Spanish half-breeds with ideas above their station, knit together as closely as they could be because there was no other choice. Family was everything. There was nothing else.

The strain showed in Rodrigo’s taut, white-lipped expression. With some difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet. No one dared to try and help. They simply watched as he shuffled to the entryway, nothing of the Pope in the line of his hunched, frail, elderly shoulders. Of course, Rodrigo wouldn’t have been Rodrigo if he didn’t turn, hand on the doorknob, to grab the final word: “I do not approve of this.” But I cannot do anything about it, went unspoken as he let his heavy gaze linger on both Cesare and Lucrezia in turn before turning on his heel and vanishing through the door.

Cesare listened to his father’s stocking feet shuffle down the corridor and out of earshot before he turned to his mother. There were tears on Vannozza’s face but her eyes were dry.

“I truly do not know what to say,” she admitted quietly. 

Lucrezia took a step toward her, one hand held out entreatingly. “You need not say anything,” she said. “We do not need to speak of it again. You can go back to knowing nothing of it. We will be discrete, Mother, I swear. Everything will go back to the way it was.” 

Vannozza laughed with some incredulity, shaking her head. “I do not think anything can ever be the way it was.”

The thought was sobering. “It will be, Mother,” Cesare said, feeling suddenly and desperately eager to please her, as though he were a child once more. “You’ll see.” 

A brittle smile flicked briefly to the corners of Vannozza’s mouth. Just a twitch, and then it was gone, leaving her looking wan and pale in the flickering candlelight. She looked between them, standing there, in front of the bed they had made together, and she said, with weary finality, “Goodnight.”

Then, it was Cesare and Lucrezia alone together again.

Cesare looked to his sister, and found her already watching him, something uncertain and unfamiliar in her gaze. It was suddenly as awkward as if they were strangers, which of course they had never been. The unfamiliarity of the feeling left Cesare feeling cold and shaken.

“Come here, sis,” he said, reaching out a hand. Lucrezia came to him, as he knew she would, but there was still a sense of relief that washed over him. In his arms, she was comfortingly solid, the press of her forehead into the expanse of his throat overwhelmingly assuring. He tilted to press his nose into her hair, inhaling her innate sweetness, and dropped a kiss against the golden tresses. “It’s okay,” he murmured inanely. “It’s okay.”

And he held her, and he stroked her hair, and he thought to himself: it’s okay. 

Everything was going to be okay. He was Cesare Borgia; it always was, in the end.

 

**Author's Note:**

> And then no one dies and they live long, fulfilling lives as the king and queen of Italy, the end!


End file.
